Interview – New CISAC Director Speaks On Expectations, Vision For The Future

The Paris-based International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC) represents 230 collective management organisations in 120 countries, collecting fees on behalf of “creators.” In the past year, CISAC has become active advocating the case of creators at the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).

CISAC organised a side event to the annual WIPO General Assembly in September (IPW, WIPO, 29 September 2014). Intellectual Property Watch’s Catherine Saez sat down with new CISAC Director General Gadi Oron after the side event, to ask him about his vision for the organisation.

Intellectual Property Watch (IPW): As the new director general, you have a new vision for CISAC?

CISAC Director General Gadi Oron at WIPO

Gadi Oron (ORON): I joined CISAC in 2012 as general counsel. I was and still am responsible for the legal policy and public affairs work of CISAC, which we really increased in the last two years. We started to work much more closely with governments, legislators, and international bodies like WIPO.

Our general vision is that we are there for creators, we are the global voice of creators … in all artistic fields. I see CISAC going forward being much more active in its public affairs, lobbying and using the power of the voice of 3 million creators.

Internationally, creators are facing two types of challenges, which are both linked to the policy side.

One of them is the development issue, and one of the points that came through in the presentations [at the CISAC side event at WIPO] is the fact that creativity could actually be an engine for cultural and economic growth. The second issue is what is happening in the digital world and why it is not working for creators.

While I see CISAC more active in the public arena, I would also like to emphasise that we also do a lot of work supporting our societies.

IPW: Are you talking about collecting societies?

ORON: We do not like the term “collecting societies,” because they are not just about collecting money. We prefer to call them collective management organisations, CMOs. They are about collecting and distributing royalties but they manage rights on a much broader scale and many of them also perform many functions that are not simplify about money.

Many societies that are members of CISAC engage in cultural activities, they promote new talents, they are involved in different social activities, they support creators in need, and they contribute to local culture. Of course, individual societies are also engaged in direct lobbying activities in each of the countries they are operating in.

We work with creators, like the creator who was here [at the WIPO side-event] from India, helping them set up new societies where they do not exist. You still have big markets, like the Indian market, where despite Bollywood being the biggest producer of films there is no local organisation to represent creators. There is no one there to take care of the interests of directors and screenwriters. They have rights in the law and they should be able to enforce them. The Indian law was amended two years ago, so now they have a law, but practically it is not working because authors are powerless against the entities that use the works. The individual author cannot negotiate with broadcasters.

IPW: A number of international agreements are supposed to protect authors, Are they not enforced?

ORON: Of course there are the Berne Convention [Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works], the WIPO Copyright Treaty and TRIPS agreement [World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights]. CISAC has local CMOs in 120 countries. The law is there but there is the question of domestic implementation of international agreements. Having an international treaty does not mean that the same thing exists at the local level; you still need local laws to give you these rights. But the biggest challenge is: how do you use these rights, enforce and manage them? This is where authors have the most significant challenge because in the majority of situations they are not in a position to really manage their rights. This is where our societies play such an important role.

Referring to India, Senegal and Israel [speakers on the panel], it was very clear you have the rights in the law but the individual directors or screen writers cannot get anything from the internet services or the broadcasters because they just do not have the negotiating power and they cannot have the ability to negotiate their rights, so you need a collective society to do this for you.

It is important to emphasise that we have 230 collective management organisations which means there are some countries thathave more than one. The reason is that we are active in different repertoires, it is not just music. It is true that most of the societies manage music repertoire, but we have societies that deal only with audiovisual content, for film and TV series. We have CMOs that deal only with visual art so they represent painters and graphic designers, and sculptors, illustrators and photographers. We also have societies that only deal with literary works and then a few that deal only with dramatic works.

[How it all started….]

In fact, collective management started with dramatic works. In the 1770s, there was the first organisation of playwrights who decided to collectively organise themselves and approach theatre owners together because they realised that individually they were much weaker.

This organisation later became the first collective management organisation: SACD [Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques created in France in 1777]. They are now more in the business of audiovisual content.

For music, it is a very interesting story, there was a composer called Ernest Bourget, who was sitting at a Parisian café called “les Ambassadeurs.” He was having a drink and while he was having a drink, it was in 1847, a band started playing one of his compositions. When they served him his drink he declared that he was not going to pay for that drink unless the café would pay him for his music.

He went to court and the court decided that the author was entitled to obtain royalties when his music is played. Immediately after, the authors realised that they had the right but could not enforce it because they could not go to every café where the music is played. So they set up the first collective management organisation for music which still exists today and is one of the strongest ones, and is called SACEM. It all started in France!

But I think the same challenges that creators had in 1850 are the challenges that we have today. The technology changed and the way people access music has changed but it is the same challenge of making sure that the author is remunerated for the access to his or her work.

Today in the online environment the big question is, we all know a lot of money is generated but how to make sure that some of it is channelled to those who created the content.

We do a lot of work on the technology side. We offer technological solutions to assist societies in exchanging information on which works are used where. We run central databases, we also develop identifiers. Every work is assigned a unique number which identifies the work. It helps societies know who is managing the repertoire, who should get paid. CISAC also develops templates for agreements between societies, so that all CISAC societies are in reciprocal terms to ensure that royalties flow between the countries to the right authors.

IPW: Piracy does not seem to be the major concern of authors, how is that?

ORON: It depends on which country and which market and which situation. I would not say that piracy is not a concern but at least when it comes to the online world, our goal is to get our content out there and make sure the people can access what they want to access, but we think it should be based on fair terms for the creators.

CMOs are in the business of issuing licences. They are not about holding back content. We want to licence. One of our key goals is to ensure that licensing solutions are available and especially as we move to the digital world. We want to make sure that the opportunity is there, and is not missed.

IPW: What do you expect from WIPO members?

ORON: There are things where we can be very specific and we are very clear, and we already sent a very strong message with respect to visual art repertoire. We still have things that are missing in the international framework, and that is resale right.

It is a question of fairness. It is only fair that visual artists benefit from the increasing value of their work because in visual art unlike in music or in films, if a song is popular, the more it is sold or downloaded the larger the royalties. For visual art, there is one copy but if the value of that copy goes up, if the work increases in value, it is because the reputation of the artist.

Unfortunately, today there are a number of large markets where the resale right does not exist, and those are the countries who took the floor [during a previous SCCR meeting] to say maybe the time is not ripe to talk about the issue, such as the United States. China does not have this right but we know that the Chinese government is committed in introducing this right.

There is an increasing presence of civil society in WIPO. It is a good thing, but the perspective of the creators is missing and when we are discussing issues such as access to knowledge or copyright exceptions it is important for decision makers to have the broader picture.

Image Credits: Catherine Saez